


transcendence

by orphan_account



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Oneshot, Trans Bilbo, Very fluffy, all the fun stuff, but still fluff really, ftm bilbo, if you want to know what its like to be trans read this, implied depression, mentions of eating disorders, mtf fili, pretty much centred around transgender/transsexual, very original title i know, with serious parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-26 12:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5005546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was born Belinda Amy Baggins, but it never did seem quite right.</p><p>(Wistful oneshot with a happy ending)</p>
            </blockquote>





	transcendence

**Author's Note:**

> It's three am on a school night and I am posting fanfiction.
> 
> This happened because I literally just fully accepted that I am transgender and writing is my method of outpouring feelings so, yeah.
> 
> Half of it is based on past experience, and the other half is based on what I hope will happen.
> 
> Enjoy :)

**_transcendence_ **

* * *

 

****

She was born Belinda Amy Baggins. For the first seven years of her life, she had seen nothing at all wrong with it. She had worn dresses, played with toys, braided her hair - even if sometimes she did wear sport shorts and a ratty T-shirt and run around with skinned knees and a soccer ball.

 

The wrongness crept up on her slowly.

 

She would feel it sometimes, a deep, aching, unreachable feeling that there was something incredibly _wrong_ , something which was just barely out of touch. Most of the time it happened when she was lying alone in the dark; when she turned eleven and began needing crop tops, it would be when she looked down at her growing chest, or when she heard someone calling her a ‘she,’ or when her mother called her ‘sweetheart’ or ‘honey.’ At first she thought nothing of it - not even registering it for the first two years except to wonder at its creeping strangeness - and she did not connect the feeling with any of the events which caused it.

 

Since a time before she could remember, she would look in the mirror and be confused by what she saw. When she was six it was because she had expected to see an indescribably lovely princess with flowing golden locks and blue eyes. When she was twelve…when she was twelve she did not know why.

 

There were other things which she did not notice until years later - her obsession with cars, with racing, with video games and building. She dismissed these as merely being tomboyish.

 

When she was thirteen the wrongness came to a head and her mother caught the stories on her skin. The psychologist clinically diagnosed her with depression. Her parents were both extremely supportive, kind, helpful, and she felt disgusted at herself - she did not have any real issues. Why did see feel this way? Why did she hate herself to such a degree? Why was there a heavy wrongness constantly weighing upon her chest?

 

When she was fourteen it did nothing but worsen. Unsure why, she cut her own brown curls with kitchen scissors. Her mother took her to the hairdresser’s, got it fixed, and called it a pixie cut.

 

She never knew. She never knew what to do, and there was no one to tell her. She felt like screaming at the world - she didn’t know! She didn’t know! _She didn’t know!_ She cried almost every night, hysterical yet covering her sobs with a hand, reddened eyes staring back at themselves in the mirrored surface of her cupboard.

 

There were mirrors everywhere on her room, and she hated them. She began to wonder why.

 

She gained weight until she weighed seventy-four kilograms. So she began to starve. Bin the sandwiches which her mother made for lunch. Think of excuses to eat less at dinner. Exercise fanatically almost every day. In four weeks she lost six kilograms.

 

Still she did not feel lighter, so she kept going.

 

Someone mistook her from the back - greeting her with a ‘hey dude’ - then apologising profusely. For some reason she didn't feel angry...just finally lighter. The wrongness, for one brief moment, had eased.

 

Weeks later, alone in the house, she began to consider why.

 

Staring in the mirror, she studied her wide eyes and long eyelashes and slender nose and soft lips and it was so indescribably _wrong_. Her eyes became red as she watched, and she wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her purple sweater.

 

Suddenly, the sweater was wrong.

 

She stripped it off like it was coated in burning poison and threw it to the ground. Her bra was lacy and feminine and her shuddering breaths became louder and louder until they tore at her throat and contorted he face. She stumbled to her parents’ room, ripping open the cupboard, going straight for one of her father’s dress shirts. Back in her room she grabbed the bandaging which she stored for emergencies and wrapped it around her chest, round and round til she could barely breathe and it cut into her chest. But she was flat and the wrongness began to ease, more so as she buttoned her father’s shirt with shaking fingers.

 

If one was to ignore her face, she could be taken for a boy.

 

She laughed until tears blurred her vision.

 

She was a boy.

 

He.

 

 _He_ was a boy.

 

The wrongness disappeared, the weight gone for the first time.

 

He knew what it was called; he had read about it, heard the stories, experienced a second-hand taste of the pain and prejudice that people like him faced. The weight crept back, though different - a crippling fear, of exposure and hatred and discrimination and homelessness and isolation.

 

His school had a uniform. He wore a red blouse that looked more pink and a prim tie and a grey skirt and dress shoes.

 

It made him sick.

 

After two weeks his best friend Prim noticed something. Longer pauses. Dishonest smiles. Brief moments of honesty.

 

‘Bella, what’s wrong?’ she asked finally.

 

He stared up at her with tortured eyes, feeling to be on the edge of a precipice and on the verge of letting go.

 

‘Please,’ he whispered, voice cracking. ‘It’s Bilbo.’

 

Her hug was warm and even though it was comforting he cried into her shoulder.

 

From there, only a hesitant yet determined admission and his parents knew. They were uncomfortable, expressions wary - as if he was a stranger - but they tried. They tried hard to understand. For three years he managed to bear the girl’s uniform, his female body, though he could at least cut his hair. In public he wore men’s clothes and only browsed the male section of stores. He still loved shopping, though he felt he shouldn’t; Prim dismissed the thought as absolute bollocks – who said he _had_ to feel anything? – and took him along anyway, making him laugh as she tutted and swung her hips.

 

It was the first time that he had laughed honestly, clearly, happily for an immensely long time and some part of him settled as Prim swirled around hoodies and baggy jeans.

 

At seventeen the two graduated.

 

One absent confession was all it took for Prim to shove a number an address in his hand, rolling her eyes but smiling.

 

‘When you come back,’ she said, ‘you’d better be Bilbo Baggins as you’re supposed to be!’

 

He realized that he had almost forgotten what the weight was like as he grinned and saluted teasingly.

 

‘Aye aye, ma’am!’

 

He did not feel quite ready for, nor wanting, any drastic sort of surgery, so he prescribed a special sort of treatment. In seven months his physique was harder, his jawline more defined, and he was finding himself having to shave; although he was still not ‘manly,’ exactly, he would definitely pass for male under even close inspection.

 

After years of training he became a car mechanic, opening his own store and fulfilling a long-held dream at the age of twenty-six.

 

At his monthly restocking he noticed a pair of new patients at the clinic – a young, golden-haired teen who was nervously clutching estrogen tablets, and a dark-haired man grasping his shoulder in a rather threatening manner. He, frowning, was on the brink of interfering before he caught the thread of the man's words.

 

‘... _definitely_ not unnatural. I never want you thinking that way again. If this will make you comfortable with yourself, it does not matter what other people choose to believe. As for your mother...Dís is just confused. She’ll come around. I know that my sister loves you, and she is doing her best to accept this. Alright?’

 

The boy nodded mutedly, though there was a hesitant smile tugging at his mouth as he looked up at his uncle. Seeing the torture in the younger’s eyes, he found himself swamped with the memory of that awful wrongness. It was the ghost of weight upon his chest which drove his feet to step forwards.

 

‘Don’t worry,’ he told the teen. ‘It’s intimidating now, but the result is definitely worth it.’

 

The boy glanced at the bottle in his hand, before relief crossed his face and his mouth curved.

 

‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘Thank you. I’m Fiala and this is my uncle Thorin.’

 

‘Bilbo,’ he replied. He shook hands with both the girl and her uncle, both of whom were very good looking with the same striking blue eyes. He also noticed that the elder’s voice was very deep and rough when he next spoke.

 

‘Fiala, go ahead to the car. I’ll sort out the rest.’

 

With an extra-bright beam at the correct name, she bounced from the clinic, reminding him of both a puppy and an excited Prim. Happiness tingled at the back of his throat with the knowledge of growing acceptance and equality.

 

His wandering attention was caught as the man cleared his throat. There was a slight nervous edge to the sound, and for some reason he found it rather cute.

 

‘Er...I was wondering,’ the dark-haired man – Thorin – began. His blue eyes were anxious. ‘I was wondering if you could tell me a little about how it feels. Not to offend you or anything, I just...’ He ran a hand through his cropped hair, frustrated. ‘I don't know much about it, and I want to support Fil- _Fiala_ as best I can.’

 

He smiled at the taller man rather helplessly, heart effectively melted.

 

‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Coffee?’

 

The man’s lips curved in an expression both grateful and brilliant and he felt the hopeful warmth of something deep within his heart. This feeling only increased in strength as they met, once, twice, four times more, at cafés and museums and for dinner at Thorin’s house. It turned out that his sister had a second child, a boy called Kili equally vibrant and accepting as his sister. Slowly, and rather inconspicuously, he became part of the family; a family which only grew as Dís appeared and apologised profusely to her daughter, before hugging her as she cried. He could not deny that his own eyes were a little wet with memory, something which Thorin seemed to notice as he soon found a warm hand around his own, and a pair of soft blue irises filling him with love.

 

He was born Belinda Amy Baggins, but he, as everybody does, had complete control over his own self. No matter what preconceived notions or societal pressures or even parental opinions may exist, a person’s choice is their own to become who they want to be, what will make them happy – whether they were born that way or not.

 

Through confusion, denial, heartache and waiting, Bilbo Baggins transcended fear and became the person he was supposed to be, finding a family along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Comments/reviews/etc appreciated. Please forgive any mistakes (though feel free to point them out) as I am somewhat sleep-deprived and will come back to edit in the morning.
> 
> Sorry if the pronoun-switching is confusing.
> 
> (This is only my experience, others will probably have had it differently. Just a disclaimer.)


End file.
